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Your daily English-language news
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Unhappy public employees will take to the streets again today in a protest announced last week. The public school teachers who were on strike for a month will be with the strikers in spirit but physically they will stay in the classrooms where students are back just one day from mid-year vacations, their union spokesman said. The public employees will gather on Avenida 2 in front of the Ministerio de Hacienda about 10 a.m. to make their case known. The ministry is the one that manages the national budget. Motorists can expect blocked streets and diverted traffic through much of the morning. The workers are unhappy that the government plans to give them only a 3.5 percent pay increase during the last half of the year when inflation has |
been at least one percentage point
higher. The currency, the colon, is systematically devalued a tiny fraction
each day, but has lost about a third of its value against the U.S. dollar
since January 2000.
Public employees are paid in colons but many of the services and items that they purchase are priced in dollars. The demonstration today is supposed to be the first of increasingly forceful methods that will be applied until the government caves in, union leaders said. Workers have been encouraged by the way the government surrendered to both communication workers and teachers during strikes about the last eight weeks. Communication workers from the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) will be in the gathering today despite having just finished a strike over financing the government monopoly on the international market. |
| Nicaraguan president
visiting here today By the A.M. Costa Rica staff President Enrique Bolaños of Nicaragua begins a two-day visit to Costa Rica today, starting with a face-to-face discussion with President Abel Pacheco at 10 a.m. in Casa Presidencial in Zapote. The Asamblea Nacional had to approve at the last minute Bolaños’ arrival because he is coming on a Nicaraguan military plane that requires legislative approval to land. Bolaños will be meeting with legislative leaders at 4 p.m., and the topic of discussion certainly will be laws of interest to the estimated 400,000 Nicaraguans who live here legally and illegally. Immigration certainly will be a topic. Bolaños also will meet with leaders of the Nicaraguan community here. A state dinner is planned by Pacheco for the visiting president Tuesday night in the Teatro Nacional. Wednesday will be more diplomacy, although the visiting president is expected to receive the keys to the city of San José from municipal officials. Big marijuana haul
Special to A.M. Costa Rica WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. customs agents have seized nearly 1,100 kilograms (2,420 pounds) of marijuana from a tractor-trailer coming from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, in what is being called one of the largest single loads of marijuana intercepted along the U.S.-Mexican border in recent years. In a statement Monday, U.S. officials said the marijuana was seized when the 18-wheel truck entered the city of Laredo, Texas. Immediately after the July 11 seizure, agents from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested the driver, Gregorio Rosas-Escuedero of Nuevo Laredo, on federal drug charges. U.S. officials then developed a plan to arrest the intended recipients of the marijuana in Columbus, Ohio, an operation that is part of the ongoing investigation into those responsible for the marijuana shipment. Officials say they anticipate that all the suspects in the case will be identified and brought to justice. More mad cow effort
Special to A.M. Costa Rica Canada will implement additional safeguards to prevent the possible spread of what is known as mad cow disease among its cattle herds, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said Friday. The secretary said that the United States will continue to coordinate with Canada and other countries to address the various food safety issues associated with the disease, whose formal name is bovine spongiform encephalopathy. In May, one case of the disease was detected in the Canadian province of Alberta, causing the United States to temporarily suspend imports of ruminants and ruminant products from the country. Since then, officials have been working closely with Canadian officials on issues related to the case. The Canadian government, which has conducted a "tremendously thorough investigation," has not detected any additional cases, officials said. Ruminants — animals with complex digestive systems — include cattle, sheep, goats, deer, bison and elk. The officials said that before animal and meat imports from Canada can be resumed, the United States wants to evaluate the potential effects of such a move on U.S. trading partners. Japan has said it would ban U.S. beef exports beginning Sept. 1 unless the United States develops a system to separate U.S.-born and Canadian-born cattle, according to the officials. Cuban central bank
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services HAVANA, Cuba — The Cuban Central Bank has ruled that state companies can no longer make transactions in U.S. dollars. The bank says the measure goes into effect in an effort to help the government secure more foreign currency. It says the new rule will not affect the Cuban population or the free circulation of the dollar. Cuba legalized the use of the dollar by ordinary citizens a decade ago. The move has allowed Cubans living in the United States and elsewhere to send money back to family members. |
Gunmen kill man
for very little cash By the A.M. Costa Rica staff Three men with guns came into a video game store in Alajuela about 9 p.m. Sunday, got in a fight with an employee there and shot him in the head and stomach. He was Guillermo Herrera Martínez, 21, and he died four hours later at hospital San Rafael in Alajuela. The men stole less than 1,000 colons ($2.50), said investigators. Rip tide takes boy
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff A rip tide caught two boys Sunday about 11 a.m. in Playa Agujas, Jacó, said officials. One boy, 8, managed to swim to safety but a second, Bryan Agüero Córdoba, 10, had to be pulled out by rescue workers and was pronounced dead when he reached a nearby clinic. The boys were with their family members who live in Tres Ríos and were in Jacó vacationing. Bandits hit supermarket By the A.M. Costa Rica staff Four gunmen held up the Palí supermarket in San Pedro Monday night while workers were buying food for their dinner. The bandits cleaned out the registers and fired several shots to punctuate
their exit.
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